Intro: Hello everyone! I am Nazerik on D2 US West Ladder and new to d2jsp but have been playing Diablo 2 since release like many of you have as well! And this is my first attempt at making a guide for the community since i feel comfortable with the Necromancer, as it is the class I main every ladder! Going to just cover summoners here, bone necromancers aren't my forte. Anyways enough of that lets jump into it!
P.S I have respecced 10+ times this ladder just find out what builds work best :) So all this information is speaking from experience
STATS
Strength: Put enough in here to wear your gear. If you're using Monarch 156 or just enough to use Enigma
Dexterity: Depends if you want to be a Vita necromancer or Max Block Necro
Vitality: Put everything here after Strength and Dex (if you choose MB) I normally go pure Vita as a summoner since we aren't going to be in the fray most of the time and would rather sponge though nasty lightnings and other deadly spells with alot of vita
Energy: Keep this at base. With gear and insight you'll get plenty of Mana Regen.
SKILL POINTS
(This is where it gets fun! I'm going to show you all a few different variations of the summoner)
Variation #1 (I am currently using this)
Summoning Spells:
Raise Skeleton: 20
Skeleton Mastery: 20
Skeleton Mage:20
Revive: 1
Clay Golem: 1
Blood Golem: 1 (as far as Golems go I normally use Fire Golem/Iron Golem made of an item with crushing blow for general use, and against bosses use Clay Golem + Decrep curse)
Iron Golem: 1
Fire Golem: 1
Golem Mastery: 1
Summon Resist: 1
Poison and Bone Spells
Teeth: 1
Corpse Explosion: 1 (Remaining points here)
Poison Dagger: 1 ( OR Remaining points here) If you want your CE to have a greater radius go with CE if you want your poison nova to do more damage go with synergy)
Poison Explosion: 1
Poison Nova: 20
Curses:
Amplify Damage: 1
Decrepify: 1
Lower Resist:1 (I normally get all curses except the AI curses the ones on the left of the try)
Pre Reqs: 1
CONCLUSION: So with this build you should have 13 skeleton 13 skeleton mages 11 revives and a 3k poison nova depending on gear. This build focuses on normally summoning mechanics but we also use lower resist and poison nova to help our army with dps (beats sitting there and waiting for a corpse..) then once we get that first corpse we continue rotation as normal with CE
I know everyone thinks you should Max CE or DONT max CE its a controversial subject and IMO 1-5 points with +skills is plenty the damage is still the same you just might have to cast it one more time? big whoop Although the CE variation of this build is fun to use and clear mobs very fast just I prefer being able to do some dmg myself
Variation #2
Summoning Spells:
Raise Skeleton: 20
Skeleton Mastery: 20
Skeleton Mage:20
Revive: 1
Clay Golem: 1
Blood Golem: 1
Iron Golem: 1
Fire Golem: 1
Golem Mastery: 1
Summon Resist: 1
Poison and Bone Spells
Teeth: 1
Corpse Explosion: 20
Curses:
Amplify Damage: 1
Decrepify: 1
So this is the standard summoner spec most of you know as "Fishymancer" here you will build your army with your fire/clay golem and merc and once you get your army rolling let your minions hack and slash away until you get a corpse then Amp damage and CE and watch things just fall over by the dozens haha remember to have clay golem out for bosses stacked with decrep curse and theres nothing they can do
Variation #3
Summoning Spells:
Raise Skeleton: 20
Skeleton Mastery: 20
Skeleton Mage: 1
Revive: 1
Clay Golem: 1
Blood Golem: 1
Iron Golem: 1
Fire Golem: 1
Golem Mastery: 1
Summon Resist: 1
Poison and Bone Spells
Teeth: 1
Corpse Explosion: 1
Bone Spear: 20
Bone Spirit: 20
Curses:
Amplify Damage: 1
Decrepify: 1
Now this is a hybrid build I personally enjoyed it at first but found with poison damage its easier to get your damage up with magic its a bit harder but still if you want to cast bone spears but still be a summoner this spec will work for you ! Continue as a normal summoner would but make sure to stay behind your 13 skeletons and support them with Bone Spears (should be around 2-3k Spears) Amp + CE are still your best friend here
Variation #4
Summoning Spells:
Raise Skeleton: 20
Skeleton Mastery: 20
Skeleton Mage:
Revive: 1
Clay Golem: 1
Blood Golem: 1 (as far as Golems go I normally use Fire Golem/Iron Golem made of an item with crushing blow for general use, and against bosses use Clay Golem + Decrep curse)
Iron Golem: 1
Fire Golem: 1
Golem Mastery: 1
Summon Resist: 1
Poison and Bone Spells
Teeth: 1
Corpse Explosion: 1 (Remaining points here)
Poison Dagger: 20
Poison Explosion: 1
Poison Nova: 20
Curses:
Amplify Damage: 1
Decrepify: 1
Lower Resist:1 (I normally get all curses except the AI curses the ones on the left of the try)
Pre Reqs: 1
So this build is similiar to the first one except we drop mages for extra poison nova damage (as a hybrid can get around 5-7k depending on gear) this build is fun and I enjoy it but prefer having mages for extra meat shields :) Continue as spec 1 would work but be most cautious as you wont have as many skeletons blocking mobs from getting to you and you are very squishy so stay behind skeles and spam nova. casting decrep on large quanity of mobs helps keep you alive!!
Thanks everyone for reading and hope this helped someone out there ! :) Don't flame me too hard for anything I may have missed its my first guide! And I left out gear on purpose for its honestly all up to the player what they want to use and too many variations to get into! just make sure to stack +skills